


Institutional Hegemonics and Introduction to Maturescence

by disarm_d



Category: Community
Genre: Coming of Age, F/M, Future Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarm_d/pseuds/disarm_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Things aren’t going according Annie’s plan.</i>  The gang graduates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Institutional Hegemonics and Introduction to Maturescence

**Author's Note:**

> Huge huge thanks to the amazing fitofpique for betaing and talking to me about this story right from the very beginning.
> 
> I started writing this a loooong while ago, so I would say it is neither spoilery for nor especially compliant with the Season Three finale.

“Con-dean-ulations!” the Dean says, poking his head into the study room. He’s wearing a black unitard with navy blue tights and a mortarboard. “Happy two-weeks-left-of-class-and-then-three-month-until-convocation day!”

“Thanks,” Troy says, grinning.

Jeff spins around from staring down the Dean and fixes Troy with a long look.

Troy turns his big grin toward Jeff, who mouths, “ _Don’t encourage him_ ,” but Troy still waves goodbye when the Dean saunters out of the room.

Annie rests her elbows on the table. She tracks the Dean’s movements down the hall until he disappears past the final window and then she looks back at the table. They’ve got the Economics final to study for but that’s still days away, so Britta, Piece and Troy don’t even have their books out on the table. Annie’s got hers on the table, but it’s closed. There doesn’t seem like much point to studying now.

She sighs.

“What are you going to do next year, Britta?” Shirley asks, drawing _Britta_ out into two distinct syllables.

“Required courses are a way for the academic hegemony to enforce arbitrary ideals in an attempt to brainwash the masses and turn learning into a formalized education process that spits out carbon copies of the same warped brain.”

“Britta will not be graduating this year,” Jeff says, “due to her ingenious protest of the system via failure to complete the required math credit.”

Britta pounds her fist on the table. “This country’s economy is in shambles. It’s a _joke_ , neigh a profound disservice, to teach the same tripe when it’s clearly been demonstrated to oppress the masses and funnel all resources to the dominant ruling class of white men.”

“Weren’t you taking pre-calculus?” Troy asks.

“ _Taking_ is such a strong word,” Jeff says. “Implying, for example, actually attending the lectures.”

“Whatever,” Britta says. “I suppose you’ve already got your corner office picked out at soulless, corporate lawyer town.”

“Or, as the rest of us like to call it, MacMurries, Thompson and Steeles.” Jeff crosses his arms. “Yes, Britta. You’ve got me. I did what I came here to do: finished my degree, got admitted to the Bar, and found a job. Now my Italian faucets will once again have a home, and I will once again receive validation for being a douchebag.” 

“Validation for being gay!” Pierce says, snorting to himself. “And, speaking of gay,” he turns to Britta, “don’t worry: I’m going to be staying at Greendale as well. We have another year together - study buddies!”

Britta’s eyes widen.

“How about you, Annie?” Shirley asks. “Are you off to grad school? I hope you will won’t forget about me when you’re at a _real_ university learning about the important world of hospital administration.“

Annie looks down at the desk, her hands flattened against the plastic laminate. She presses her lips together before saying, “I didn’t get into grad school.”

The group utters an audible gasp.

“What do you–” Britta starts, while Jeff burst into a stream of, “This is _outrageous_ ,” and Pierce starts calling out, “We’ll sue!”

“It’s okay,” Annie says. “It’s just that it turns out there are a lot of classes normally required for healthcare administration that aren’t offered at Greendale, so my degree isn’t officially equivalent to those at other colleges. I need to spend another year upgrading before I can get in anywhere.”

“That’s okay,” Jeff says. “Listen, that’s – this is okay. We’ve been through worse. We just need to rally together, and we’ll get through this.” His eyes get wide and his forehead seems to expand even further upward.

“It’s just another year,” Britta says. “It won’t be that bad.”

“Except that I’m out of money,” Annie says. “And I don’t qualify for a bank loan, and you can’t get a student loan unless you’re a full time student enrolled in a real program, and upgrading classes doesn’t count as full time, and tuition is a _lot_ more expensive at other schools than at Greendale.”

“Oh, Annie,” Shirley murmurs.

“And if I can’t get a real degree, I can’t get a real job, but real degrees cost real money, and I can’t get real money without a real job, and I can’t get scholarships without a real degree, so there are no other options, and I am completely screwed for next year.” Annie’s voice catches on _screwed_ and she clamps her molars down hard on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to take a breath.

“You were screwed by the institution,” Abed says, nodding to himself, like he does when he’s working out his latest simulation as he and Troy head to the Dreamatorium.

“I guess so...” Annie says. Her eyes still feel a bit prickly.

“We, the masses, have been screwed by the institution. While I didn’t apply to grad school, I also have a bleak future. It turns out there aren’t a lot of jobs out there for film study majors or most of the other majors offered at college.”

The table goes quiet. Troy nods along vigorously as Abed speaks.

“We are the 99%. Oppressed by the institution that has robbed us blind and then thrown into a world that does not want us.”

“Umm,” Annie starts, because she’s learned the signs of Abed getting stuck on something. Three weeks of dodging plastic arrows after they watched _The Avengers_ taught her constant vigilance.

“Occupy Greendale,” Abed says. “It’s perfect: relevant to the greater cultural zeitgeist, specific to our own circumstances. I can get this to go viral. Sundance, I’m coming for you.”

“It’s not _Greendale’s_ fault...” Annie starts.

“We were fed a curriculum of lies,” Abed says. Annie’s not sure which activist he’s emulating, but she can see him gaining momentum. “A promise of a future, a promise of options. Instead we graduate and find ourselves saddled with heavy baggage – student loans, financial uncertainty – and ill-equipped to compete in the global economy. The post-grad life was a fable, and now someone must be held accountable.”

“Okay-y-y,” Annie says. “Well.”

“ _Annie_ ,” Jeff hisses.

Annie widens her eyes and curls her lips down. She isn’t responsible for Abed.

And anyway, he kind of has a point.

\--

Three weeks left to go and then - all the weeks. All the rest of the weeks. It's not a gearing up to summer, it's just a countdown to infinity.

Annie still goes to class, but she’s stopped taking notes and instead sits quietly and tries not to fall asleep. She’s not _bereft_ , but it’s hard to wake up in the morning, hard to fall asleep at night. She stays up late looking at job postings and lies in bed rehearsing what she’s going to say in the interview.

It turns out it’s quite hard to get even an interview when all she’s got is a degree from a community college and no work experience.

It's fine, it's okay. She's got enough for next month's rent and groceries, and then it will still fine but she’ll be out of money.

\--

She gave up a long time ago trying to herd Troy and Abed so they can all walk to campus together, but that’s because they have a much looser definition of _late_ and also a different set of priorities in the morning. Annie: showering, hair, outfit, breakfast, collection of last night’s homework. Troy and Abed: broadcast of _Troy and Abed in the Morning_.

Which is why she’s surprised when she walks across the field to find Abed already in front of the school, holding a megaphone, surrounded by a small but interested crowd of students.

“We. Are. The 99%,” Abed shouts.

 _Well_ , Annie thinks, _this is happening_. And then she cuts around the back to enter the building by the cafeteria.

\--

“So,” Annie says, dragging out the _oh_. “What are you doing?”

“Making signs.” Troy sets the gold glitter pen down carefully on the table before lifting his head to look up at her. “Do you need us to move?”

The kitchen table is completely covered, as is the floor of the shared living area and, Annie would venture to guess, all surfaces of the blanket fort.

“It’s okay,” Annie says. She’s trying to be careful with money, so for dinner she’s having a peanut butter sandwich: nothing she can’t eat standing up.

“Do you want to help?” Troy asks.

She’s tempted. More than tempted, if she acknowledges the little flutter she gets in the base of her throat at the idea of being included. _Troy and Abed and_ Annie _making signs_.

Troy waits patiently while Annie stands, hesitant, her stupid sandwich getting smushed between her tight fingers. It’s hard to be roommates with Troy sometimes because she still has an instinctive reaction to say, yes, _Yes!_ every time he asks her something.

But Abed has been wearing the same outfit for the past three days, and the holes he cut in his jeans are starting to look legitimately frayed. There’s a very serious air to the sign making, and Annie can’t do serious right now. She can’t do social responsibility and spark the collective consciousness. She can’t even figure out what she’s going to do for lunch tomorrow.

And how do jeans with holes help to make him one of the people, anyway?

“Maybe later,” she says, giving Troy a little shrug.

\--

Britta doesn’t come over as much now that her will-they-won’t-they with Troy has landed firmly on _won’t_. But Troy is camped out at the school, so more than _that_ it is surprising that Britta came over when Annie asked if she wanted to watch a movie because the last time they tried, it didn’t go very well.

Probably it was Annie’s fault for trying to put on _Pretty Woman_ that first time. She will grudgingly admit that Britta has a point on that one, but it took three hours of ranting to get her there. Tonight, Annie plays to her audience and sets up _The Devil Came on Horseback_ , which gets her a very impressed nod even though Britta has already seen it.

Annie goes to the kitchen to get them glasses of water and, when she comes out, Britta is sitting cross-legged on the couch, smiling, like maybe she’s having fun during girls’ night in spite of herself.

Annie sets the glasses down on the table, and sits on the couch without pressing Play on the computer.

“So, another year at Greendale?” Annie asks.

“Yeah,” Britta says, quirking her mouth like, _What can you do?_ Like the obvious answer is not, _Pass calculus the first time around._

“Well. That’s okay,” Annie says. “Right?”

“I’m on a journey,” Britta says. “Think about how much I’ve learned already. I’ve found my calling –- not a bad tradeoff for an extra year at college. It’s like the universe is making me give back that year I should have been finishing high school.”

“And then you’re going to be … a psychiatrist?” Annie asks. It’s been a struggle for Annie, finding the line between pleasant conversation and nosy interrogation. She just wants to know what other people are _planning_. What’s next for them? What have they got figured out that she still can’t?

“Technically, I guess I might need a PhD for that,” Britta admits. “But there are lots of ways to help people. I’ll find something in the not-for-profit sector.”

“But don’t you want, you know. The real deal?”

“Whatever you do is real,” Britta says in that soft pitying way she gets, like she knows everything about the world because once she lived in New York.

“I know,” Annie says defensively.

Britta tilts her head and studies Annie with her huge eyes. Taking psychology classes has made Britta stranger, certainly, but she also seems a lot more interested in connecting one on one with people now, which is probably why she’s here with Annie instead of camped out at Greendale with Troy and Abed. Although that’s probably where she’ll be heading once they’re done.

“What are _you_ doing next year?” Britta asks.

“Erm,” Annie says. “That’s the question, right?” Her voice gets high and sing-song, but it sounds less playful than she would have liked.

“You should travel,” Britta says, eyebrows rising with excitement. “A month backpacking across Europe will change everything for you.”

“How will that change anything?”

“You’ll have been to _Europe_. Backpacking!” Britta says. She’s got a bit of a crazed look on her face, but that’s more common than not.

“I don’t have any money,” says Annie. “That’s kind the problem.”

“You don’t need money, that’s exactly what _I’m_ saying. You can hitchhike, and you’ll make friends, and everyone has a spare couch.”

“That does not sound safe.”

“Where has safe got you?” Britta asks.

“ _Hey_ ,” Annie says, before deciding that it would be better to pretend not to be offended and smooths out her face. Just because her life is in shambles doesn’t mean that Britta’s going to change.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Britta says, pivoting around on the couch so that she can look Annie in the eye, tilting her head earnestly. “It’s just – you’re so young. You still have so much time to learn about yourself.”

“I don’t need to learn about _myself_ ,” Annie says, forgetting to pretend to play it cool. “I need to learn how to get a job.”

“Annie,” Britta starts, but Annie cuts in with, “Better start the movie, right?” and leaps off the couch to hit the spacebar on the laptop.

\--

Occupy Greendale builds momentum quickly and, by the time classes finish, Abed is sleeping in a tent in a sea of another hundred tents scattered around the quad and only coming back to the apartment to shower, play in the Dreamatorium, and eat butter noodles.

He's actually at the apartment a lot.

But when Abed's gone, Troy's gone, so Annie is spending more time alone than she's used to. Which is fine. She lived by herself for a couple years, she knows how to be alone. Except that there's a week with no classes where she's supposed to be studying for finals, and it turns out that facing the extreme uselessness of one's endeavors is not actually great motivation.

And it's still really hard to get an interview with zero work experience and a community college degree. May's rent is due, which is okay, she's got that money in the bank. But once that cheque is cashed, her bank account will be under one hundred dollars.

Annie pulls out her economics textbook, case of highlighters, and makes herself a cup of tea. She's got everything she needs, but alone in the apartment there's no way that she can pretend that the reason why she's not getting anything done is because Shirley is passing around a plate of brownies or Pierce is being racist or Jeff is wearing that slinky grey cardigan.

She slams her book shut, packs up her supplies in her nylon messenger bag, and heads out of the apartment in search of a better place to study.

She ends up at Applebee's, which is not, actually, a better place to study.

But it turns out that at Applebee's, even with zero work experience and a community college degree, it is possible to get an interview (behind the counter, after the lunch rush, with a manager who is maybe one year older than Annie is) and then get hired.

\--

"Well," Annie thinks, tucking the order pad into the front of her apron at the start of her first shift, "this is happening."

\--

If she’s got the pay schedule figured out correctly, she should get her first pay cheque eight days after rent is due, having put in three weeks of work, but tips come as a handful of cash at the end of the night, so if she’s careful with that, she’ll probably manage to pull together enough for rent.

It just means that when a three year old throws his glass of milk down the front of her shirt, instead of screaming in his mother’s face, she just smiles tightly and says, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and pats herself down with paper towels in the bathroom.

\--

Thursday night and Annie comes home to find Abed on the couch, freshly showered. The door to the bathroom is closed, so she guesses Troy is doing the same.

“Hey,” she says, dropping her keys into the blue bowl by the door and setting her purse on the floor, parallel with her pair of black work shoes.

Abed twists his head around and waves. “You want supper?” he asks. “I made butter noodles.”

“Maybe later,” Annie says. She’s starving after being on her feet all day, but serving food has also made her nauseous, and she thinks she might actually be too tired to eat. 

Abed scoots over on the couch, making room for Annie to flop down. He’s rewatching _Cougar Town_ , which means that he’s trying to cheer himself up.

“Tough day of protest?” she asks.

“The Dean came out,” Abed says. He sits motionless but there’s still something anxious about his posture. “He wanted to know our demands.”

“How did that go?”

“Not great,” Abed says. “It’s hard to come up with a concise list of demands using the true method of social democracy. We’re going to be out there for a while longer.”

“Sorry,” Annie says.

“It’s okay. Not sure what I’d be doing instead,” Abed admits. “At least I’m getting good footage.”

“I can get you a job at Applebee’s,” Annie says. “That would go well, I think.”

Abed has started to learn when Annie is teasing, so even though it’s slightly manic, he shoots her a toothy grin.

Troy comes out of the bathroom wearing his boxers, towel wrapped around his neck.

Annie looks down at her feet (angry red dents where her shoes dug in). She can feel Abed shift beside her on the couch.

“That,” Troy says, “was the _best_ shower.”

“Nothing like waiting a week to make you really appreciate the conveniences of modern plumbing,” Annie says. Is Troy going to get dressed now?

He sits down on the armchair. Apparently not.

It’s awkwardly comforting to sit with Abed, silent but clearly deep in thought, and Troy, no guess as to his mood but _he’s not wearing a shirt_. Her two roommates. If they were the types to talk about such things, she thinks there would be a comradery to their failure to transition to whatever was supposed to come after Greendale.

Instead Abed glares at the TV, waiting for _Cougar Town_ to show him how groups of people connect in a meaningful way, and Annie frets about the ache in her feet.

And, from the half smile Abed gives her when she glances sideways at him, they both studiously ignore the Troy-shaped elephant sitting in the chair, soft grey boxers riding high on his thighs.

\--

In the grand scheme of things that she can't talk about with her parents – living with two boys, rehab, kissing a man who is fifteen years older than her – working at Applebee’s rises quickly to the top of the list.

“It’s good, Mom,” Annie says. “I just need a little break from school. Get some life experience, you know?”

“You can always come back home,” her mother says. She’s taking the news that her daughter is a waitress harder than Annie expected, and Annie expected it her to take it pretty hard.

“Uh huh,” Annie says, and chews on the back of her thumb. That’s certainly in the top twenty list of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ways that this could end, but it’s an ever growing list.

\--

“Okay, so as we move along the production possibility frontier, a wheevel becomes a widget and no one gets to eat coconuts.”

Annie looks up from where she’s been staring blankly at her notebook, dotting the paper with ink splotches as she rests her pen on different spots.

“Are we back to the coconuts?” she asks. “I thought that was for efficiency and budget lines?”

“ _There are always coconuts_ ,” Jeff says, colour rising to his cheeks. Angry is not a bad look on him. Law was a good choice of professions.

“Should we just call it a night?” Annie asks, and Jeff’s face morphs into concerned and then quickly into blank, like he can’t let his facial expression rest too long on caring, even when it’s just him and her in the room.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Just doesn’t seem like we’re getting a lot done.”

“The economics final is in three days, Annie,” says Jeff. “Shouldn’t you be staking out territory in the library? Preparing to spend the night with your textbook?”

Annie shrugs. It’s like – she does care, she does. But she’s seen how other people look when they blow off classes, and it’s easier to imitate that right now than to go through all the motions of being herself.

Jeff is wearing a white t-shirt with a very loose neck. She can see the blunt line of his collarbones, but even though she pulled her hair free of a ponytail half an hour ago, Jeff hasn’t started the shuffle down the table, hasn’t come up with an excuse to move beside her. It’s just the two of them in the study room and if he came closer, Annie thinks she would probably – she might. It’s a bit hazy, any of the specifics, but she can imagine putting her hands on his shoulders. The wanting is only low-grade and it feels more like boredom than anything else.

Losing interest in school has been great for her sex drive. There are a lot of hours in the day to daydream when she’s just staring blankly at the page in front of her.

“I’ll drive you home,” Jeff says, his face soft in a way that it’s usually not.

“Thanks,” Annie says. Not having to bus home is the next best thing to ill advised makeouts with Jeff.

\--

Walking into the gym to write her last final brings about this sick feeling of dread, because even after the torture of trying, and failing, to study, opening the exam booklet and realizing that she doesn’t know the answers still brings that terrifying fear, hitting her right in the solar plexus.

 _It’s doesn’t matter now, it doesn’t matter now, it’s too late,_ except Annie still doesn’t know how to let go of the horror that she’s failing an exam.

But she has a shift right after, so she can’t even sit the entire three hour exam period because she has to be at work by five. So she turns in her exam booklet, walks out of the gym, walks away from Greendale – dodging between the tents spread across the campus – and catches the bus. It’s the last time she’ll ever go to school, the last final she’s going to write. If Jeff were sitting beside her, she would say, “If only this hoodie were a _Time_ -hoodie,” and he would roll his eyes, but he’d get it. 

Or maybe – not really, because she didn’t even see him writing the exam. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he passes his classes: he’s already got everything lined up. She and Jeff end up being on opposite ends of the same thing more often than she would care to admit.

Work is work is work is work is fine, she knows how to get through a shift. Knows how to keep her head down when she walks back to the bus, finds a seat as close to the driver as possible for the ride back, and flies the rest of the way to the apartment.

Abed is home when she walks through the door.

“Where’s Troy?” she asks, setting her shoes together and hanging her bag on its hook.

“At Occupy,” Abed says. “I needed a new camera lense. I’m going to get some shots of the crowds.”

“You don’t keep all your gear over there?”

“Gets dirty.”

Annie nods, and then watches as Abed crouches in front of his camera bag, pulling out lenses with long, careful fingers.

“And then you’re going back?” she asks.

“Yup,” Abed says.

That’s fine. Annie could just go with him, if she really wanted to. There would be a sleeping bag for her in one of the tents, she’s sure. But she doesn’t want to camp out on campus, she doesn’t want to go back to campus. She _finished_. 

“Hey, Abed,” Annie asks, “how’s it … going?”

“What’s it?”

“The movement, being done finals, you know.”

“Good, good, and no I don’t.”

“You’re just going to play this out?” Annie asks.

“Stand my ground,” Abed corrects. “And, yes. I think we’re making process. We’ve got different stations now, so there are three hot meals a day, a communal library. It’s evolving.”

“Cool,” Annie says.

“Cool,” Abed agrees. “Cool, cool, cool.”

So, he’ll go back to Occupy and Annie will just ... find something to watch on TV, probably. This is not how she would have imagined her last day of school back when she first enrolled in Greendale, but then nothing is much like she imagined when she first registered.

It’s too bad that none of them have enough money to keep alcohol in the house. This feeling is probably why people choose to get drunk by themselves.

Annie feels a little drunk even without, like the exhaustion has lowered her inhibitions. Maybe she could give someone a call, find somewhere to go tonight – a place that costs zero dollars and is easily accessible by bus.

“Found it,” Abed says, putting something into his shoulder satchel and clearing the rear of his gear away.

Annie sets her teeth into a smile and gives Abed a thumbs up, which he returns unironically.

Abed looks very tall and lean right now, his cloth bag hanging at his hip, his worn jeans sliding low. He looks like someone who could unite a hundred students to take a stand against their community college, and he’s standing right in front of her. Annie thinks, _oh_ , thinks, _this is why Shirley warned against boys and girls living together_.

For a second she thinks – but no. 

And then, _why the hell not?_

Abed is drumming his fingers absently against the side of his leg. She could maybe take her hair out of its ponytail and see how that went but, knowing Abed, that won’t be enough. So. She’s just going to, she’s just _going_ to.

Annie clears her throat and tries to keep her voice even as she says, “Do you want to – have sex?”

“Hm,” Abed says.

“And what does _that_ mean?” Annie says.

“Nothing,” Abed says. “I just didn’t expect this.”

“Never mind,” Annie says. “Forget I said anything.” She’s not sure why she thought that would work, but the wrenching twist in her gut feels mostly like embarrassment and also a good part like disappointment.

“I thought you’d ask Troy,” Abed says.

“Why would I ask Troy?” 

“You had a crush on him in high school. It would be a powerful symbolic act, taking something you always wanted but were too afraid to go after and using it as a catalyst for forward growth. The simultaneous holding onto and letting go of the past.”

“This isn’t a symbolic act,” Annie says, “it’s a literal act. A... sexual act,” she hisses. This conversation is terrible, but also: did she really think there was any other way it could go?

“So that’s why you asked me. You want to avoid any complicated emotional repercussions.”

“I didn’t ask you because I wanted to analyze this to death,” Annie says. “I thought you were used to girls approaching you.”

“I am,” Abed says.

“So? Are you... saying no?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you’re saying no?”

“No, I’m saying yes.” Abed looks her right in the eye and gives, what counts for him as, a subtle wag of his eyebrows. It makes the yes sound like _yes_ and Annie feels the shame wash away with a long wave of relief.

“Oh,” Annie says. “Okay then. Like. Now?”

“You asked me,” Abed says. “When were you thinking this would happen?”

“Now, I guess,” Annie says. She looks over at Abed, pulls down the hem of her cardigan and sets her shoulders back. “Maybe it would be easier if you pretended to be Han Solo again.”

Abed pulls his bag off and sets it down on the armchair. “I told you, babe. Once I’m dead, I’m dead.”

She should be embarrassed for him, but instead it just makes it easier to cross the room and throw her arms around his neck. Abed is bony and taller and she can feel the heat of his body under the soft material of his t-shirt.

He kisses her the way she wants to be kissed, putting his hands on her hips and leading her backwards until her back is up against the wall. She rises up on her tippy toes and rocks up when he pushes his leg between her thighs.

Already her face feels flushed, and it takes her a minute to form a coherent thought when Abed mouths under her jaw and whispers, “This is what you want, right?”

Annie says, “Yeah,” her breath hitching in the back of her throat , but then they trip over each other while trying to hop up onto her bed and Abed lands with an, _ooph_ , and blinks up at her – 100% Abed as he waits to see what she’s going to do next. She just pulls her sweater over her head without undoing the buttons. She leaves her bra on, slides her underwear off without removing her skirt, and settles in Abed’s lap.

And then it’s less about Han Solo and more about getting Abed’s dick out, finding a condom and watching Abed’s fingers as he rolls down the rubber. 

It hurts when she sits on top of him, like maybe they should have slowed this down. She holds her breath and waits out the sharpness, the throbby, crampy feeling when she’s all the way down. When he’s all the way inside.

Abed is silent and so, so still, looking up at her with his huge eyes. She almost feels embarrassed – she wanted this and it should be easier. She should be able to take what she wants. But Abed is so quiet beneath her, just the soft pressure of his hands holding her carefully around her waist. Moving up and down too much brings the sharp feeling back, but rocking back and forth is okay, just grinding down against him and letting the ache swell into something hot and alive.

“I’m not very good at this,” she whispers, finding that she’s out of breath even though they’re hardly moving. She had sex with her boyfriend in high school, and then a couple of times with Vaughan, but not like. Not a lot. Not enough for sex to feel natural or like anything other than this surreal thing that is completely removed from the rest of her life.

“Feels good,” Abed says. She can see the flash of indecision on his face and then he reaches up and cups her breasts, grabbing a little too hard but he’s got big hands and the feeling of them makes her thighs tremble.

This probably isn’t what sex is supposed to look like, but Abed’s hands on her breasts, even over the thick fabric of her bra, and the slow rocking back in forth ratchets up the tension enough that Annie pushes her hand underneath her skirt and rubs herself off, Abed’s hands moving to her hips to hold her when she starts to shake. She comes in this terrible wave, huffing out the last of her breath and then opening her mouth soundlessly when she can’t find the air again. Abed’s dick is all the way inside of her and her hips are moving all of their own accord, grinding down against him. She curls in on herself, her fingers sliding against the sudden wetness and she has to move her hand away because she’s sensitive, she’s so sensitive now.

Annie shivers. She’s still got Abed’s dick inside of her and it feels more intimate now. More intense now that she’s rocked herself to orgasm in front of Abed, now that he’s seen her come. She’s sweating and the hair that has come out of her ponytail is sticking to her forehead.

“Do you want me to, um. Keep going?” she asks, looking at the pillow instead of meeting Abed’s eyes.

“Yeah,” he says. “Can we, um,” and then they’re rolling around on the bed and Abed is sliding his dick back inside of her. 

It’s easier this time; she’s so wet. He slides in and starts moving, and then Abed is fucking her. She’s getting fucked. They’re having sex. This is what it feels like, this is what she’s doing right now.

It’s funny that the first time that sex feels real is with Abed, who’s usually three steps removed from any situation, but mostly it’s hard to think about anything at all.

\--

Troy comes home, gives Annie a grin as he walks past her doing dishes in the dishes. He makes it to the main room and it’s not until he sees Abed that he comes to an abrupt stop.

“Oh my god,” he says.

The plate that Annie is holding slides out of her hands, slippery with soap.

She makes frantic eyes at Abed from across the room.

Abed raises his eyebrows, looking back and forth between her and Troy.

“Oh my god,” Troy says again.

“Troy,” Annie starts. That’s really all she’s got.

“You two?” he asks, his voice going high, high, high.

Annie widens her eyes at Abed. _Why did you tell him?_ Even though she knows Abed hasn’t said a word.

“Don’t worry,” Abed says. “We’re just doing a little coming of age sideline. This isn’t going to turn into a Rachel and Ross situation – think more _Igby Goes Down_.”

“Which one of you is Igby and which one is the overdosing junkie and or Claire Danes?” Troy asks, at approximately 80% full volume. It’s a loud volume. A loud, high-pitched volume of distress.

“I guess archetypically Annie is Igby here, but I admit it’s not a perfect metaphor. I’m still a bit. You know?” Abed gestures vaguely: _one of those human emotions, you know?_

Troy nods.

“So this is something we do now?” Troy asks.

“Bad metaphors?” asks Annie.

“Sleep with each other.”

Troy is riled up, but he hasn’t stormed off or started ranting about betrayal, so all in all things are going better than expected. Particularly if she ignores Abed, who has started wiggling his eyebrows vigorously in Troy’s general direction.

“O-kay,” Annie says. “Good talk. I’m just going to finish the dishes and think a little harder about some of my life decisions. Over there.” And then she walks back to the sink.

There aren’t that many plates left to clean, but she takes her time, and Abed and Troy are on their way back to Occupy before she finishes at the sink. Her fingertips are pruney and her nails feel soft, malleable. She dries her hands on the dishcloth and then goes for a shower.

\--

Having sex with Abed doesn’t make things awkward with him, but for some reason she feels like every conversation with Troy has this undertone.

He's sitting on the couch beside of her, flipping through the small number of stations they actually get. Without Abed there to insist they watch something, all of the shows seem kind of stupid.

"This show is never as funny as I remember it being," Troy says, stopping briefly on a _Home Improvement_ rerun before he resumes channel surfing.

"No," Annie says, though she doesn't much remember watching the show in the first place.

Troy leaves the station on _The Great Race_ and turns the volume low enough that they can’t hear what the contestants are arguing about, so it's just calming background noise.

It's quiet between them and Annie's almost asleep when Troy eventually asks, “What was it like?”

“What?” Annie asks. She’s too tired for this. She didn’t even know there were muscles on the bottom of her feet, but she’s pretty sure she pulled every single one of them. However many muscles there are, she has pulled them all. Walking from the restaurant to the bus was almost more than she could handle, and she would have caved and called a taxi were it not for the fact that she’s still nine days away from getting paid and she currently has seventeen dollars and thirty-one cents to her name. The concrete felt like daggers – like the real fairytale about the Little Mermaid, where the mermaid is given legs but every step she takes feels like she’s treading on swords. She still dances all night with the Prince.

Annie’s not going to be doing any dancing.

“With Abed,” Troy prompts. Annie thinks there might have been a start to his sentence, but she’s zoned out.

“It was nice,” she says dreamily, leaning her head against the back of the couch. Troy is this solid presence beside her. Warm but not hot and stuffy like being back in the kitchen. He’s just _kind of_ warm and a whole lot soft and he smells good.

She pulls off her socks, dropping them on the floor beside the couch, and curls her palm over her toes, hissing a little when the pressure makes her baby toe pop.

“You alright?” Troy asks.

“Yeah, just. A long shift,” Annie says. It was just as long as every other shift, but the amount of time she’s spending on her feet is starting to get to her.

“Here,” he says, reaching for her foot, and it takes her a moment to realize that he means to give her a foot rub, that she’s meant to put her feet on his lap.

“ _Oh_ ,” she says, breathier than she means to. “It’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“Come on,” Troy says again, covering her ankle with his warm palm and giving a little tug. 

She uncurls her legs and puts her feet on his lap, careful to avoid kicking him anywhere – carefully.

He starts to rub and she says, “ _oh_ ,” again, because he actually knows what he’s doing and his hands working over her aching foot is the best thing she’s felt all day. “That’s really good, Troy.”

“Did some, like, massage stuff for football,” Troy says. “You know, if you’ve ever got a Charlie Horse.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“This okay?” he asks, digging his thumb in a little harder.

“It’s really, really good.”

Troy’s head is dropped, staring intently at his hands working over her feet. He’s got this soft look of concentration on his face, like she’s got 100% of his attention right now. And that feels almost as good as the footrub.

“Have you guys done it since?” Troy asks after a long moment of silence, during which Annie turned slowly in a melty puddle of tired and sunk into the corner of the couch. She tenses up again when she realizes what he’s asking.

“No, just the once.”

“How come?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“If it was good. With Abed. Why haven’t you done it again?”

“I don’t know,” Annie says. “It was just – thing to do. We’re not _dating_.”

“Right,” Troy says.

“It was just sex,” Annie says. She’s heard other people say that and always thought it was a load, but there’s something kind of fun about finally having the opportunity to say it herself.

“How did you, um. Know he wanted to?” Troy asks, clearing his throat to try to hide the way his voice cracked.

“Abed’s not gay,” Annie says sharply. This is not going to be another source of exclusion between her and them. They already love each other in every other way; there’s no way she would be able to compete and she doesn’t want to. She’s tired of watching everyone else get what they want while she’s left behind.

“I know,” Troy says quietly, working his thumbs over the arch of her feet.

Annie closes her eyes and tries not to moan when Troy hits this, like, long sharp thing in the bottom of her foot that aches all the way up the back of her calf. It throbs like crazy and feels so, so good when Troy presses down.

She takes a slow breath, opens her eyes and says, “I just asked him.” That’s all she can give him. Right now, anyway, when her back is sore from carrying trays of food to tables full of screaming children and men who stare at her boobs when she leans forward and women who send her back to the kitchen three times because the pasta still isn’t warm enough. Annie’s too tired to look after anyone else’s feelings right now, but Troy’s hands feel good, steady as they rub out the cramps, and she says again, “I just asked him.”

“Okay,” Troy says, and he rubs her feet for a long while longer.

\--

"I'm fine, mom," Annie says, when her mother mentions that her father could probably get her a job filing at his office. Just on weekends, and Annie's genuinely grateful that she's not in a place where she actually has to consider $6 an hour of charity from her parents.

“You need to figure this out,” her mom says. “You’ve been done classes for _ages_.”

“I know,” Annie says.

“I knew going to Greendale would be a mistake,” her mother says. “You were so close to going to a real school where you would have had real options.”

She thinks about that sometimes. The end of high school when she wasn’t sleeping more than three hours a night because of the pills and the coffee and how there weren’t enough hours during the day to get everything done. At the time it seemed impossible, but sometimes she wonders if maybe she _could_ have pushed through. Wonders where she’d be now if she’d listened to her parents instead of deciding that she could take care of herself better than they ever could.

“I’m handling it,” Annie says, and no matter what might have, could have been, at least that’s finally true.

\--

She starts applying for jobs again, even though it takes at least twenty minutes to write each new cover letter and she never, never, never hears back from any of the places.

\--

Sometimes, when she gets home after her shifts, Troy or Abed will be there, making signs, taking showers, sitting glued to the TV. Often they're at Occupy Greendale and she has the apartment to herself.

"Have you figured out your list of demands?" Annie asks on one of the nights when they are home.

Abed pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

"Sorry," Annie says, because even after all these months it's a touchy subject. Specifically, a touchy subject to which the answer is consistently _no_.

"We just want it to be better, " Troy says. "That's not – it's hard to articulate."

"But you have a job," Annie says, keeping her tone careful. It's kind of the number one thing that they're not supposed to mention, aside from spoilers for the latest episodes of _Elementary_ and references to the fact that _Cougar Town_ has not been renewed for another season.

And maybe the thing about how Annie and Abed had sex, except Troy still brings that up sometimes.

"It doesn't mean the system works," Troy says. "Air conditioning repair is a separate annex. It's like the, um, the other thing that makes it true."

"The exception that proves the rule," Abed says. "And, anyway, he's only working part time."

Abed's become extremist in his views, where the definition for _become_ is more _was always and continues to be_. He won't even make eye contact with people wearing suits, but Annie's okay in her waitressing apron and heavy rubber-soled shoes. Troy's okay in the coveralls he wears to his part-time job fixing air conditioners at the rec center.

Which is convenient, because they're also the only ones paying rent this month.

"When's it going to be over?" Annie asks.

"I don't know," Abed says. “Sometimes it’s hard to see the end when you’re still stuck in the middle.”

\--

 _Shirley’s Brownies_ opens on a Saturday afternoon. Annie’s exhausted from staying up all night helping Shirley repaint what seemed to be a perfectly fine shade of cream with grey trim to what appeared to be a slightly darker shade of cream with a virtually identical shade of grey trim. She’s eaten so much batter that her stomach aches, but still she grabs another square of brownie off the sample tray and tries to swallow it subtly as she carries the tray around to offer everyone who’s arrive for the _Friends and Family_ event. Some of them are actual friends and family of Shirley, but a lot of others seem to be people who have flocked in from the street. The _Free Brownies_ sign Pierce put up really was a good idea.

Shirley’s flushed and focused, barking orders and slamming the oven doors. She’s wearing a white chef’s apron, but she looks more like a business woman, with a careful eye on everyone and everything.

She’s not opening officially until Monday, so they close the store at four. Annie flops onto the ground, which is covered in crumbs but she doesn’t _care_. And in a moment, Shirley hits the ground beside her.

“Oh my god,” Shirley says. “Oh my god.”

“You did it,” Annie says, nudging Shirley in the side with her elbow.

“Oh my god,” Shirley said. “I need to find better mint chocolate chips; those were way too melty.”

“You _did_ it,” Annie says again. “Everything was perfect. You’ve got your store!”

“I have my store,” Shirley repeats, so awed and exhausted and proud that Annie has to lean sideways and wrap her arm around Shirley. She feels like she’s going to start crying with how happy she is for Shirley, how exhausted she feels right now. How strange it feels to be watching someone get everything they’ve always wanted.

Jeff shows up once the event is already over, wearing a full three piece suit even though it’s Saturday afternoon. He’s wearing a watch that probably cost more than Annie’s rent for the year, and when he sees her sitting on the floor – Shirley has long since gotten up to finish cleaning – he extends his hand and pulls her to her feet. The firm grasp of his dry palm and the way he doesn’t let go right away once she’s standing means they’re very close together for a long moment. He’s wearing enough cologne that Annie thinks she can taste it in the back of her throat but in the best way.

Annie thinks – maybe, because Jeff’s hand around her wrist makes her skin ignite. The whole day has been wholesome and fulfilling, exactly what she used to love, but now the sweetness makes her teeth hurt a little. She feels out of place like she never used to. She feels like she might do something stupid because it hurts even worse to do the right thing.

Over Jeff’s shoulder she can see Abed watching them with his huge eyes, his face impassive. Troy keeps looking back and forth between her and Abed, worried. He catches her eye and doesn’t look away.

Annie blinks. Squares her shoulders and gives Jeff a little shove until he’s not close enough to smell any longer, giggling while she does it, sweet but firm.

“So, how’s the practice?” she asks, nodding in all the right places and tuning Jeff’s story out entirely.

\--

Customers are wretched but Annie's almost friends with some of her coworkers. They seem to drink a lot more than she does so usually she says no when they invite her along to the bar after work, but tonight she goes. She nurses the same vodka and soda for an hour (it doesn't taste any better once it's warmed from her hands) and tries not to feel out of place. A lot of her coworkers are older than she is, and there's this whole, like, _scene_. They meet up with other people who work in the food service industry and go to this place that's open after hours, and the cooks from the kitchen come out and eat with them once the food is ready. There's this whole other nightlife that she never knew about, that she would never have known about if she were in grad school and then working the office job she'd been imagining.

She's trying to think about life as experiences now and stop worrying if they're good or bad, and she's successful about 21% of the time. On a good day. If that.

It's just past midnight when she catches the bus back home. Everyone is raring up to go someplace else, but she doesn't have the cash to get drunk and doesn't have the energy to stick it out sober. She doesn't have the energy to get drunk either, if she's being honest, but that sounds almost sadder than actually _wanting_ to drink the night away.

She walks in the door, takes one look at Troy and Abed sitting on the couch and feels her stomach turn to lead. Oh. So this is how Troy knew right away when it was her and Abed: it’s just that obvious.

Troy and Abed both look at her with their _faces_ , and it’s terrible. If they’re dating now, she’s going to move out of the apartment. It will be an idiotic decision, because there’s no way she can afford anything on her own and where will she _live_ , but it’s what she’ll have to do.

“Annie,” Troy says carefully. It feels like her cheeks have ignited, and they can probably see her flush.

“You were already in love with each other,” Annie says. “This can’t be some big revelation.”

They look at each other, look back at her. They've got the same tilt to their heads and they might be blinking in unison. It's creepy or maybe it's cute, but right now Annie's sick with how it feels to never have any of the things she wants.

"I'm going to bed," she says, and then walks directly to her bedroom and closes the door. She can hear them discussing something intently and then they linger in the hallway in front of her door for what feels like a very long time before finally knocking softly.

"Annie?" Troy calls out gently.

"I'm sleeping," she yells, and then actually sits down on the side of her bed so that it's less of a lie. She should have made a pitstop in the bathroom first because she's still wearing all of her makeup and now she's trapped in her bedroom with no way to wash her face.

"Can we come in?" Abed asks.

"No," Annie says. She realizes that it probably looks like she's throwing a temper tantrum right now but she _wants_ to. She wants to throw an absolute fit and wreck the apartment and scream at the top of her lungs and for them to give all their attention to her and to never touch each other when she's not there. Also, she wants a new phone, while she's sending impossible wishes to the universe.

"Are you mad?" Troy asks.

"Yes," Annie says.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Abed asks.

"No."

"Are you really sleeping?" Troy asks.

"Yes."

"Okay," Troy says, disappointed. There's this shuffling sound as they move around, but she can tell they're still standing right in front of her door. She can imagine the longing looks their sending at her through the wood, their stupid pathetic faces at being denied something they probably didn't even want that much in the first place.

She lies down on top of the comforter and waits, staring at the ceiling. She can't hear them breathing or anything, but there's enough noise through the door that she knows they're still there, like maybe even though they're with each other, they're still thinking of her. Her eyes prickle as she blinks at the ceiling.

She falls asleep for just long enough that she's completely disoriented when she wakes up, cold for lying uncovered, her eyes tacky from the day's mascara.

The door squeaks when she opens it, and Troy and Abed look up from where they're sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall. They're holding hands, but they let go when they see her standing in front of them, and instead of looking guilty they just seem so, so happy that she's opened the door.

"I have to wash my face and brush my teeth," Annie says, her voice soft and warmer than she realizes it’s going to be.

"Abed downloaded _Empire Records_ ," Troy says, squinting a little as he looks up at her. "You said you wanted it watch it with us."

"Okay," she says. She cleans her teeth and wipes off her makeup and changes into a pair of yoga pants and an oversized, grey Greendale sweatshirt and walks back to the living room to find them sitting on either end of the couch, room in the middle for her. She sits down, folding her legs beneath her. Troy reaches out and wraps his fingers around her ankle, and Abed leans over until his shoulder is pressed against hers.

Do they know how good it feels when it's all three of them? This can't all be in her head.

But it feels like it’s been a long time since she knew how to get the things she wanted for herself, so she sits quietly, falls asleep again against Abed’s shoulder, Troy’s hand around her ankle anchoring her to the couch. She wakes when Abed starts singing along, _s-s-sugar high_ , and laughs in spite of herself. Eventually she drags herself back to bed, falls asleep as the sun starts to rise while Troy and Abed tuck themselves into their bunk beds.

\--

Troy and Abed are gone when she finally gets up (well after noon, but she works in the evenings and has been switching to later and later hours). She gets a call while she’s watching a rerun of _Desperate Housewives_ , but it’s doing admin work at a chiropractor’s office where she’d be earning even less than she does now because there wouldn’t be tips. It was one of the jobs she applied for right off, when she was searching frantically for _anything_ , but now that she’s settled into the panic, she knows it’s not even worth the time it would take to go in for an interview. She doesn’t want scraps, she wants the real deal.

Saying _no_ feels horrifying, but it’s also the most relieved she’s been in months. Another thing to add to the list of things she can never ever tell her parents about. She doesn’t call home much these days.

\--

Annie’s napping on the couch after her shift, because she’s convinced herself that if she just rests her feet and her eyes for a few minutes she’ll suddenly have the energy to go out again, when Troy and Abed come home. It’s been days since she’s seen either of them for longer than a passing hello and goodbye.

"I finished my documentary," Abed says, plugging a cord into his laptop and playing the video on the TV. He sits down at her feet, and Annie pulls herself up so that there’s room for Troy to sit on her other side.

The opening shot pans over a crowd of tents littering the quad, moves around to settle on Abed's face. 

_The students of Greendale have had enough_ , he says in his tattered jeans and stained black t-shirt.

He actually managed to get interviews with most of the teaching staff (the Dean sitting behind his desk in a checkered suit, his hands pressed into a steeple and resting against his chin in a strong showing of sobriety as he says, _Greendale never_ promised _to set its students up for careers, this is_ just _a place of learning. I'm still a good dean!_ ) and a few local business owners. Somewhere over the last few months there was even a call to the local police force, so he got some great shots of the blue and white standing, confused, off to the side while a group of students play hopscotch, drawn in chalk, on the baseball court.

It's coherently comprehensive and close enough to unbiased that Annie says breathlessly, " _Abed_. This is really good."

"I know," Abed says.

"Like, really really good."

"I know," Abed says again. Then, awkwardly, "Thank you."

The closing credits roll and the screen clicks back to Abed's desktop.

"So is it – done? Then?" Annie asks.

"I got all the footage I needed."

"But what about all of the students camped out on campus?"

"They're probably still there."

"But," Annie starts, feeling herself frown, "aren't you going to go there anymore?"

"I have my documentary," Abed says.

"They trusted you to be their leader," Annie says.

"They trusted me to speak for them," Abed says. "And that's why I've done. There can be no leader in a true democracy, only a means of facilitation. I can't direct a movement, I can only direct my movie. And my movie is finished."

"But that's so–"

"Realistic?" Abed asks. "I'm making a documentary – if I can't be truthful with you, how can I be truthful about my project? A candy coating would be a disservice to everything we've tried to accomplish."

"These were real people," Annie says.

"And this is a real documentation of their journey. There is no greater truth than art."

"It's a good movie," Annie says again, grudgingly this time. "I just don't think it's nice for you to start something without finishing it."

"I finished my film," Abed says. "There is no ending to life."

"Well. That's. Okay," Annie says. "I guess that's–"

"True,” Abed finishes. “Which is why TV is superior to the real world.”

“And you,” she says, standing, because she suddenly feels trapped sitting between them. She looks at Troy, “You’re fine with this?”

“It’s a good movie,” Troy says.

“The movement? You’ve been camping out there for months as well. You’re fine just letting it all go? You don’t – you stop caring just because Abed tells you to?”

“I care,” Troy says. “Protests aren’t forever. This seems like as much of an ending as there’s ever going to be.”

“You’re both cold,” she says. “You’re completely wrapped up in your own worlds, and you don’t care who gets hurt in the crossfire.”

“You’re upset,” Abed says, calculating. “You were never out there with us, so this can’t all be about Occupy.”

“You started dating,” Annie says, and then doesn’t know how to finish.

“We slept together,” Troy says, doing that thing where he raises his voice at the end of each sentence so it sounds like a question. “Just like how you and Abed slept together? Because sometimes that’s a thing that we _all_ get to do?”

“I don’t want you to sleep with each other and not sleep with me,” Annie yells. “I mean, okay, literally you do sleep with each other in the bunkbeds, and I like having my own room, but I don’t want you to have – _sex_ with each other. And not with me.”

“That’s what _we_ want,” Troy shouts, exasperated, his voice doing that high hysterical thing that usually means he’s about two seconds away from stomping off somewhere.

“Wait, what?” Annie asks.

“I keep trying to talk about it,” Troy huffs, his voice still so high, “but it’s really awkward to bring up, and I didn’t want you to feel like you were being, I don’t know, harassed or whatever.”

“Really?” Annie asks.

“Yes,” Troy says, rolling his eyes.

“And you?” Annie asks Abed.

“I’m used to people approaching me,” Abed says. “And you didn’t, except that one time, so.”

“And you never approached me at all,” Troy says. “Even though you _said_ you liked me during high school. Do you only like me when I’m playing football?”

“No,” Annie says. “Dummy. I just – it seemed like it would mean something, with you.”

“And you don’t want it to mean anything?”

“It’s too late for that, I guess,” Annie says. “I couldn’t help that after all.”

“So,” Abed says, gesturing with long fingers. “You do want it to mean something, and you do want both of us. And we both want you, and we want it to mean something. We all want the same thing.”

“Um, yeah,” Annie says, still reeling.

“Are we actually doing this?” Troy asks, his eyes so wide that Annie is actually able to see white all the way around his irises. “Seriously? This is the _best_.”

“We haven’t actually done anything,” Annie says. “So you really have no way of knowing that.”

“Yes I do,” Troy says, stubborn, and then he walks over and catches her hip with one hand and says, “So I can kiss you now, right?” Like he’s too excited to wait another minute.

“Yeah,” Annie says, and he _does_. She spent so much time thinking about this in high school, and it’s nothing like she imagined because it’s _real_. It’s not that different from kissing Abed, except Troy’s mouth is softer and his hand goes right to her boob. She wonders if she should feign outrage, but they’ve basically already agreed to have sex, so it just makes sense that they’d start doing the things that people do before they have sex. Before they have a _threesome_. This is not what Annie imagined for her post-college experience. It’s not something that she ever planned for, but it’s really, really good.

“Do we have to – talk some more?” Annie forces out, suddenly breathless as Troy kisses down the side of her neck.

“Do we?” Troy asks. He lifts his head and looks so eager and sweet that Annie can’t help leaning in for another kiss.

“Maybe not,” Annie says. Kissing is better than talking.

Abed comes up behind her, reaching for the hem of her cardigan and pulling it off without undoing the buttons. It ends up being really fast to get naked when there are two sets of hands working on it, like no time at all passes and she’s stripped to everything but her panties, and then Troy’s kneeling on the floor, curling his fingers under the waistband of her underwear and asking, “Can I?”

And then she’s completely and utterly naked.

Troy kind of, like, nuzzles her, gives her pubic bone a kiss that makes her clench her thighs together against the surge of arousal.

He turns to Abed next, takes his pants and boxers down as well. Abed is hard and his dick is standing straight out in front of him. Boys can’t hide anything, and it’s really hot to be able to _see_.

“So, I can just–” Troy trails off, this hungry distracted look on his face as he bites his lip and waits for them to answer.

“What?” Annie asks. How much can they really do when they’re all in the middle of the living room like this?

“Troy’s going to suck my dick,” Abed says.

Annie gasps. “ _Abed_.”

“What,” Abed says, intonation just shy of a question. “He's going to.”

“You can’t just _say_ that.”

“Troy likes it,” Abed says patiently. “He wants to suck my dick. I’m not saying anything that isn’t true.”

“Okay, but.” Annie looks over at Troy. His mouth is open a little, like probably he does want to – like probably he wants to suck Abed, like probably he’s thinking about it right now. Of course he’s thinking about it. Annie’s thinking about it.

She watches them together until she feels like she has to do _more_ , and then she helps Abed take his t-shirt off, runs her palm over Troy’s head. Kneels down and touches her fingers to the edge of Troy’s mouth, touches her mouth to Abed’s cock. 

They move to her bed. Abed holds her hand while Troy fucks her, watches them move together, and touches them both, his hand between Troy’s shoulder blades, stroking her hair out of her face, reaching between their bodies to rub her off. It seemed like it would be hard to navigate, three bodies, but it just means there are more hands to touch her the way she wants to be touched, and eventually she closes her eyes, stops trying to track hands and just does what feels good.

\--

Annie wakes and there are two boys in her bed, which is approximately two more people than her bed comfortably sleeps. She's about to fall off the edge and her calf is numbly cold from being uncovered all night. She stands up, adjusts the blanket over the bare stretch of Abed's shoulder, and picks up her clothes on the way out of the bedroom. 

Closing the door to the bathroom, she dresses, rubs baby powder into her hair and pulls it into a ponytail.

She doesn't know where she's headed until she finds herself in front of _Shirley's Brownies_. It's early on a Sunday morning, but there are a couple of people in the shop, sitting at the bar to re-sugar themselves.

Annie walks inside, stands behind the man who's already in line. Shirley doesn't recognize her at first, so focused on taking orders and making change, but when she finally does her face lights up and she says, " _Annie!_ You came to see me."

"Hi," Annie says. "Just walking by."

"You want to help for a little while?" Shirley asks and passes Annie an apron without waiting for her to reply.

The store gets a little busier before quieting down and Annie chases down the empty plates left on the bar, collects the napkins that didn't quite make it into the garbage can. She didn't sleep enough last night, and it's not until she steps into the kitchen and leans against the wall that she realizes how tired she is. She slides down to sit on the floor – such a mess, but she's already wearing dirty jeans so it doesn't matter at this point – and blinks against the throbbing in her temples.

Shirley bustles in eventually, slides a new pan of brownies into the oven and setting the timer. She smiles at Annie on the floor before easing herself down as well.

"My feet," Shirley moans.

"I know," Annie says.

"My _feet_ ," Shirley says.

"Yeah."

"You okay?" Shirley asks. "Not that I don't like seeing a familiar face, but it's awful early."

"I'm fine," Annie says. "Just couldn't sleep. I was going to check the job posting board in front of the library, but then I came here instead."

"How's that going?" Shirley asks.

"Well, I'm a waitress, so."

"Nothing wrong with working in the food service industry," Shirley says, pointedly.

"I know," Annie says. "It's just."

"It's just not what you were hoping for."

"No," Annie says. It's not even in the same category as what she had been hoping for; it doesn't even feel like the same _country_ most days.

“I think of you more as a friend,” Shirley says, “since we’re not that different in age, but as someone who is slightly older and has just a little more life experience, believe me on this – you’re going to be _fine_.”

“You don’t know that,” Annie says, her voice going high and sharp. “You came to Greendale, and you learned how to start your own business, and everything’s going exactly according to plan for you.”

“Oh, honey,” Shirley says. “This is one of a whole lifetime of plans. I didn’t plan for Andre to leave, and I didn’t plan little Ben. I thought I was going to be happy being at home until I wasn’t any more – you don’t know how it’s going to go or what’s going to really matter when everything else rinses out in the wash. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’ve still got so much time.”

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Annie says, feeling her face crumple horribly. “This isn’t how I thought things would be.”

“I know, sweetie,” Shirley says, pulling Annie in.

Shirley is so soft and her perfume smells like flowers. It’s a hug from a mother – better than a hug from _Annie’s_ mother because Annie’s mother doesn’t want Annie to be sad, and now, just like always, when things are hard, she’s just _gone_. Shirley doesn’t want Annie to be sad either, but she’ll still sit here with her.

“I’m sorry,” Annie says, wiping at her face. “I’m being a baby.”

“You’re a smart, hard working, resourceful young woman,” Shirley says. “And we’re all allowed to get a little down sometimes.”

Annie feels herself go red as her eyes prickle threateningly again. She wishes she could think of the perfect thing to say in reply, something that would be worthy, but instead she blurts out, “I think I’m dating Troy and Abed.”

Shirley’s eyes widen and then she blinks hard.

“Well,” she says, “the Lord does not condone that kind of behavior, strictly speaking, but I guess it all just comes down to love in the end."

Annie ducks her head, more ashamed than she would have been if Shirley had started lecturing because they haven't talked about _love_ , but she told Shirley and the world didn't end and Shirley's still sitting beside her, this warm, comforting presence. Like maybe, at least in this moment, who Annie is matters more than what she does.

"You want to bring something back home to your boys?" Shirley asks, pushing to her feet and rubbing her hands across the front of her apron before she reaches down to help Annie up as well.

"Yes, please," Annie says, following Shirley out of the kitchen.

\--

"Where were you?" Troy demands when Annie walks into the apartment. "We woke up and you were _gone_."

"I went on a walk," Annie says. "Stopped in at Shirley's bakery. She gave us a pie. You want it now or should I put it in the fridge?”

Troy’s eyes get all big, so Annie walks the pie over to the counter and grabs forks while Troy sprints into the kitchen and leaps for the plates.

“ _Yes_ ,” he says. “It’s apple, right?”

They sit on the couch, eating pie out of bowls because it's less messy than using plates. Annie's a little sore, achy between her legs in this way where she wants to prod at the hurt. She thinks that once she's done eating, she might go back to bed, but when she finishes the pie, it's too comfortable to stand again, and she slowly slouches lower and lower, dropping her head to rest on Troy's shoulder and tucking her feet under Abed's thighs. Their arms come around her, fingers overlapping.

“This is good, right?” Abed asks.

She can feel Troy nodding his head. She reaches over to rest her hand on Abed’s leg, and says, “Yeah.”

“I thought so,” Abed says.

\--

Abed doesn't want to come to convocation – his film has been getting some local buzz and even though he's not actively camped out, he's still the face of Occupy Greendale – but she and Troy manage to convince him to attend.

Leonard is reading out students' names, which is worse than she had hoped for but also exactly what she should have expected. They've been ordered alphabetically. Troy's in the first group; he fist bumps the Dean and pumps his fist above his head once the tassel on his cap has been moved to the other side and he's exiting the stage underneath the _Class of 2013_ banner.

Annie's group lines up next, and as she stands and waits her turn, she picks out faces in the audience – Britta and Pierce sitting beside each other, both looking pained. Her parents holding up the camera and tracking her movements. Jeff's wearing sunglasses and is holding his mortarboard instead of putting it on his head; Shirley's cheering so hard that she's half out of her seat. Troy makes his way back to his seat, wiping away tears with a quick swipe of his sleeve. Abed's face is blocked by the giant video camera he's using to pan over the crowd – she doesn't know if this will make its way into the extended cut of the documentary or if he'll keep the footage for his personal archive. 

Two more people left to be called and then it's Annie's turn. She curls her hands into fists and tries to ignore the way her heart is thudding in her chest, all nervous and exhilarated and overwhelmed. She remembers the first day of classes, how excited she was to have a fresh start. The way it felt to leave Greendale on the last day of classes. Everything she's learned and all the ways that she's still just as scared, just as hungry to prove herself, just as anxious to find her place. There are a lot of faces in the crowd smiling just for her and she feels grounded in a way that she never did before. She has more questions today than she did when she first started college, but somehow she still feels like she’s gotten smarter. The panic's still there but it's quieter now, more easily comforted.

Leonard reads out, " _Annie Edison_ ," and she steps up onto the stage.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [livejournal](http://disarm-d.livejournal.com/312268.html).


End file.
